Infrared picks up invisible UFOs

I understand that you are haughtily sneering at a respected NASA scientist

and at Astronaut Edgar Mitchell's judgment of Paul Hill and his text.

Evidently you are the Pope of science. h

Please forgive me if I don't genuflect when you pass by.

Evidently you also believe that a scientific book written for a broad audience, including laymen, ought to include tons of difficult to decipher dry 'scientific' text and vocabulary.

Actually, the book has too much of that sort for my taste.

It doesn't bother me much that the slices I posted were too anemic for you.

I suspect lots of things, writings, issues, people, are too anemic for you. You're probably an exciting riot to live with.

You are absolutely wrong that such science was never applied to the topic.

Hill's book alone would prove such an arrogant assertion wholesale smug and idiotic to an extreme.

But I have no dellusions that you'll ever be altered by facts unless they hit you sufficiently over the head to knock some of your cockiness out of your noggin.

I have been a consultant for NASA working on optical space payloads in the LWIR. I have designed solid state spectrometers that will fly to IO someday when the flight is funded and authorized. Begin to grasp the physics of what you believe before you expect to be able to explain the science to others.

Gases absorb and radiate at very narrow and specific wavelengths. The visible spectrum is not narrow so even if a gas, in this case, air, which is mostly nitrogen, was energized it would create photons that are visible but would also radiate at specific wavelengths, for example, CO2 has a strong absorption/radiation band centered at 4.3 microns in the MWIR but it has none in the visible but will excite and cause photons in the visible however. If there was a plasma on the subject phenomena then it would be visible but the observers reported that it was seen on radar and in the IR only. I will agree however that a sheath of plasma on a body may obscure its shape. In this case this was not operative.

Thanks for acknowledging that the shape can be obscured.

Certainly I can't personally argue the science with you as it's out of my league in a list of ways.

Neither am I an idiot at my IQ level.

And I can easily recognize some closed mindedness and arrogance which tend to be plenty blinding regardless of the science or topic involved.

It is clear you have never read the book involved nor, evidently any other similar text. There's plenty of science in the text for you to digest.

You might consider reading more of the other side's SCIENTIFIC treatments of the topic; the other perspective on a topic before you pontificate so dismissively and so arrogantly.

I am sorry that I am not a considerate Christian like you proclaim.

I don't recall insisting or even asking that you be considerate, or Christian.

More fair minded and less arrogant would be much more attractive.

Yes, I get annoyed on such threads more quickly for a long list of reasons. And if someone's going to dish it out, I may not turn the other cheek consistently or at all. I may, in fact, throw it back, with interest.

After several decades of the stereotyypical response, it gets ridiculously old.

Part of me COULD say it's a small thing about a RELATIVELY insignificant topic. True enough.

But it's silly to dreadful that too few people are more than wimpy in the face of such unreasonable and lopsided assaults. At some point, I decided enough was enough and at least some of the time, I'd fling the poop back.

I'm sorry you've had such a paucity of experience with my Christian consideration and thoughtfulness. I hope the future can be different.

Thankfully, God and many others have had a different experience with me.

While doing a net search on Paul Hill and NASA, I ran across these quotes:

" While working with a camera crew supervising flight testing of advanced aircraft at Edward's Air Force Base, California, the camera crew filmed the landing of a strange disc object that flew in over their heads and landed on a dry lake nearby. A camera crewman approached the saucer, it rose up above the area and flew off at a speed faster than any known aircraft. "
-- NASA astronaut, L. Gordon Cooper. --

" I have frequently been asked why a person of my background-a former Chief of the Defense Staff, a former Chairman of the NATO Military Committee-why I think there is a cover-up [of] the facts about UFOs. I believe governments fear that if they did disclose those facts, people would panic. I don't believe that at all. There is a serious possibility that we are being visited by people from outer space. It behooves us to find out who they are, where they come from, and what they want. "
-- Admiral Lord Hill-Norton, Former Chief of Defense, British Royal Navy, Video and Disclosure, pp. 305 - 307 --

" The UFOs are interplanetary devices systematically observing the Earth, either manned or remote-controlled, or both. Information on UFOs has been officially withheld. This policy is dangerous. "
-- Col Joseph Bryan, USAF, Retired, Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Air Force --

" Behind the scenes, high-ranking Air Force officers are soberly concerned about the UFOs. But through official secrecy and ridicule, many citizens are led to believe the unknown flying objects are nonsense. To hide the facts, the Air Force has silenced its personnel. "
-- Vice-Admiral R.H. Hillenkoetter, Pacific Commander of Intelligence in W.W. II and later Director of the CIA, The New York Times, Sunday, February 28, 1960: "Air Force Order on 'Saucers' Cited," p. L30. See also Disclosure, p. 58.--

" The UFO was bouncing around the 747. [It] was a huge ball with lights running around it….Well, I've been involved in a lot of cover-ups with the FAA. When we gave the presentation to the Reagan staff, they had all those people swear that this never happened. But they never had me swear it never happened. I can tell you what I've seen with my own eyes. I've got a videotape. I've got the voice tape. I've got the reports that were filed that will confirm what I've been telling you. "
-- John Callahan, FAA Division Chief of Accidents and Investigations, Video interview and Disclosure, pp. 80 - 85 --

I wouldn't call these people unscientific, laymen, irrational or ignorant.

Below the above quotes was this doc. I won't take the time to code the links etc. I'll post the pics after this post.

From the below link:

http://www.david-sadler.org/pages/bio/discIsOurs.htm

If the Disc is Ours
by David Sadler

In 1966, I was about to enter the 8th grade. My friend and I were in the back seat of his family car. His mother was driving west on Illinois Highway 14 between McLeansboro and Benton, Illinois. It was about 9 or 10 PM. The summer's night was clear.

About 6 miles west of McLeansboro, my friend began yelling for me to look. I was sitting next to the window on the passenger side of the car. I looked to the northwest and what I saw was an oval disc sitting nearly on top of Pleasant Grove Church which sits north of Hwy 14.

(Note: The linked disc above described by Bob Lazar comes the closest to describing the physical appearance of the disc seen by us from the distance and angles described. If this disc had no 'portals'; if the top was just a bit more rounded and the whole object was colored yellow with the appearance of the color emanating from the disc, you would have the object I saw when I was in the eighth grade. This event changed my perspective on the world and generated an inherent mistrust of official government pronouncements and media reporting of government pronouncements.)
Computer image of the 'sports model' UFO from the Bob Lazar website.

The disc was all one color - yellow. There were no other lights or colors. The color radiated like a glow from a solid object with a very distinct and defined shape. The light did not pulsate, but remained steady.

We began yelling for his mom to stop the car, but she didn't. My eyes were glued to the object hovering not more than 10 to 20 feet above the church. As the car continued traveling west, we were now in front of the church - about 100 feet away. (We went back a couple of years ago as grown men. We stepped the distance off and talked about the event.) We turned our heads around and looked back northeast as the car sped west. At all times the object remained over the church and maintained the shape and color described.

We lost sight of the disc when a large group of trees 'a woods' blocked our line of sight. His mom finally turned around just as soon as we lost sight of the object. It took maybe 20 seconds for her to slow down, turn around and edge back out to reestablish our line of sight with the church. The object was no where in sight.

As soon as we arrived at his house, I called by phone and reported the sighting to our local county (Hamilton County Illinois) sheriff. The deputy did not want to take the report, but I insisted.

That was nearly 36 years ago. I've never seen anything like that before or since. I've been to air shows and military bases. I have flown private and commercial. I've read everything from Aviation Week to Popular Science and Mechanics. I have been an avid fan of the space program until the last few years. The only place I've seen anything similar is in some of the UFO books and videos that I have seen since beginning my investigations into just exactly what it was that my friend and I witnessed.

While I can describe what I saw, I can not say what it was, but I have formed some conclusions over the years.

If the disc was ours (our military), it was completely unconventional both then and now. It would represent an entirely new paradigm in aviation.

If the disc was ours, the fact that they exist is not and has not been kept a secret. As I have learned in my study of the phenomena, sightings have occurred regularly for decades if not hundreds or even thousands of years. [Artwork depicts UFOs thousands of years ago.]

If the disc was ours, it has not been acknowledged as we have acknowledged the stealth fighter and bomber. It has not been used like we used the atomic bomb and the stealth.

So I have some questions that I am beginning to become very impatient about having answered.

If the disc was ours, why did we build Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, the Redstone and the Saturn? Why did we build the Shuttle? Why are we building the international space station? Why do we have a space plane on the drawing boards?

If the disc was ours, why are we still burning fossil fuels and playing deadly games with nuclear power plants? Why are we going to war over energy?

If the disc is ours, and no attempt has been made to hide it from the populous, why are people's careers and reputations ruined and lives sometimes lost for reporting a sighting?

If the disc is ours, why did the NRO (National Reconnaissance Organization) historian disclose in a Popular Mechanics report that the CIA began deceiving the American public in the early 1950s to make them believe earth was being visited by space beings? [ The CIA's Secret UFO Files, Popular Mechanics, November 1997 issue ] See my letter to the editor of Popular Mechanics regarding this article.

If the disc is ours, who has it? The USAF, the Navy, a ‘shadow government’ unelected and unaccountable to the citizens of the United States as some have proposed - who? And what are they doing with it?

If the disc is ours, why am I not flying a commercial disc instead of a noisy and slow jetliner?

If the disc is ours, why destroy peoples' lives, careers and reputations for reporting seeing one?

If the disc is ours, why not admit it and show it at air shows?

Something very strange is going on here. I no longer care about the criticism, ridicule and odd looks from those who do not believe the story or who do not take the UFO phenomena seriously. I have a very bad feeling about this. The subject and reality of it is too important to not be taken seriously.

I no longer support our US space program because of the way this issue has been treated by the 'civilian' space agency and our government. I visited Johnson Space Center in Houston and saw nothing there that was any more real than the disc my friend and I saw hovering above Pleasant Grove Church. For my government's agencies to say there is nothing to it, is a slap in the face to tens if not hundreds of thousands of honest and educated voting citizens who have observed these objects at distances close enough to throw a rock and hit them.

Of course, there is the possibility that it isn't ours, in which case, it is a legitimate question to ask, " Who's is it? " And, " Why do they seem to violate our airspace with impunity? " But I will not go there; not because I am fearful of it, but because that is beyond what I observed and would be speculation on my part. I do think about it and discuss it.

Some of our brothers and sisters in Christ witness to non-believers and tell them how God has spoken to them. I don’t know that God has ever spoken to me in such a way that I knew without a doubt that it was God speaking. But I do know one thing, and that is that I have seen a UFO as big as a church from 100 feet away.

My friend and I are grown men now. We have lived half a century. We each own our own businesses. We have families. We’ve never been in trouble with the law, and we have never had mental problems that would suggest that what we saw was an illusion or figment of our imaginations.

We often hear that Christianity would be destroyed if we were to discover an ‘alien’ race of extraterrestrials. I am proof that not all Christians would be so destroyed.

I am not so certain that these craft had to come from far away in the universe. While I don’t know anything about this for certain, there are many possibilities surrounding this phenomena including but not limited to:

1) The craft could come from another dimension that occupies the same ‘space’ as our dimension. They simply enter and exit our dimension at will.

2) The craft could be native or indigenous to the Earth. This is their home (or exile), just as it is our home.

3) The craft could come from various distances away from Earth. We really don’t yet know the structure of the atom, or the distance to the quasars and far off stars and galaxies. We still don’t know if there is an edge to the universe. We still can’t predict which planets will have a magnetic field and which planets won’t. We still can not extract energy from the air even though we are literally swimming in energy. We are still trying to harness the power of fusion while we continue to roll the dice with fission.

4) Perhaps this is spiritual? Perhaps this is a direct observance of a part of the spiritual reality that we as Christians say we believe in. See Chuck Missler’s 'Alien Encounters' for a Christian look at the UFO issue, or see Col. Philip Corso’s 'The Day After Roswell,' to see the amazing confession of a man who worked in the Pentagon at the Foreign Technology Desk and in the Eisenhower White House on the National Security Council. At the end of his splendid career, he writes one book. What was it about? Roswell and the reverse engineering of the debris, in which, according to him, he played a major role. Also highly recommended is the on-line book 'The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects' by Edward Ruppelt. Mr. Ruppelt was the head of the U.S. Air Force Project Blue Book. Ruppelt wrote the truth about the threat assessment of Project Blue Book immediately upon leaving the position of official USAF UFO debunker.

Any argument that the craft can’t get from there to here because of Einstein is laughable simply because the limitations established by Einstein are already beginning to fall apart in laboratories and observatories around the world. Scientists have now slowed light to a few miles per hour, stopped it dead in its tracks and started it up again. These news stories are in the mainstream press.

Any denial that the craft are here is made in direct opposition to the mountain of credible and tangible evidence that they are, and most importantly to me, in direct opposition to the fact that I have seen one with my own eyes. That experience has molded my perception of the world and made me very skeptical of authority figures telling me what is true and what is false.

MGS-MOC image: m1501228a
Source website: U.S. Geological Survey
Section: PDS Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) Image Collection
Page: Mars Global Surveyor MOC Image m1501228 - Browse Page
Question: Who's on Mars, or isn't this a geodesic dome?

Evolutionists need to know the truth about the impossibility of the random and undirected evolution of life. They need to know the truth about the fossil record. They need to hear the truth about how little we know about the Earth, moon, solar system, galaxy and cosmos.

On the other hand, Christians need to know the truth about UFOs. They are as much a part of God’s creation as the Earth and Man. They are as real as the screen upon which you are reading these words.

* * * end * * *

PHOTOS FROM ABOVE ARTICLE:

http://www.david-sadler.org/image/science/mgs_m1501228a.jpg

END

Bud Hopkins was on Art Bell over the week-end. Interesting. His book, Incident in Copley Woods, I believe is the correct title, was pretty good. Though my favorite is still "The Interrupted Journey" about Betty and Barney Hill that I read way back in grade school.

A quality review of Hill's book is below--from site:

http://www.ufoevidence.org/documents/doc59.htm

"a Chief Scientist-Manager at NASA's Langley Research Center" doesn't sound like an idiot about science, to me.

Nor does: "The strength of the compilation lies in its thoughtful separation of wheat from chaff, and the analysis of the former into coherent patterns, including detailed calculations."

I'm still willing to loan this book at my expense to any FREEPER I'm familiar with who has the training and credentials to make a good laymen's summary of the main points for us.

By: H.E. Puthoff
Institute for Advanced Studies at Austin, TX 78759

SUBJECT: Synopsis of Unconventional Flying Objects, by Paul Hill, Hampton Roads Publ. Co., Charlottesville, VA, 1995 (ISBN 1-57174-027-9)

JSE Review by H. E. Puthoff, Ph.D., Institute for Advanced Studies at Austin, TX 78759

To the degree that the engineering characteristics of UFOs can be estimated by empirical observation, in my opinion the above-referenced, recently-published book by Paul Hill provides the most reliable, concise summary of engineering-type data available. [1] The data were compiled over decades of research by a Chief Scientist-Manager at NASA's Langley Research Center [2] who acted as an informal clearinghouse for UFO-related data. The strength of the compilation lies in its thoughtful separation of wheat from chaff, and the analysis of the former into coherent patterns, including detailed calculations. Perhaps surprising to the casually interested, under careful examination the observations, rather than defying the laws of physics as naive interpretation might suggest, instead appear to be solidly commensurate with them, as the following discussion shows.

One of the most consistently-observed characteristics of UFO flight is a ubiquitous pattern in which they tilt to perform all maneuvers. Specifically, they sit level to hover, tilt forward to move forward, tilt backward to stop, bank to turn, and descend by "falling-leaf" or "silver- dollar-wobble" motions. Detailed analysis by Hill shows that such motion is inconsistent with aerodynamic requirements, but totally consistent with some form of repulsive force-field propulsion. Not satisfied with paper analyses alone, Hill arranged to have various forms of jet-supported and rotor-supported circular flying platforms built and tested. Hill himself acted as test pilot in early, originally-classified, versions, and found the above motions the most economical for control purposes. Pictures of these platforms are included in the text.

In an effort to examine the force-field propulsion hypothesis yet further, Hill analyzed a number of cases involving near-field interactions with an apparent craft in which some form of force was in evidence. These include examples in which a person or vehicle was affected, tree branches were parted or broken, roof tiles were dislodged, objects were deflected, and ground or water were disturbed. Under close analysis the subtleties of these interactions combine to point unequivocally to a repulsive force field surrounding the craft, while discriminating against propulsion mechanisms involving jet action, pure electric or magnetic effects, or the emission of energetic particles or radiation (although the latter may accompany the propulsive mechanism as a secondary effect). Further detailed investigation indicates that the particular form of force field propulsion that satisfies observational constraints is what Hill labels a directed acceleration field; that is, a field that is, in general, gravitational-like in nature, and, in particular, gravity-canceling. [3] Such a field acts on all masses in its sphere of influence as does a gravitational field. Corollary to this conclusion is that observed accelerations ~100 g's relative to the environment could be sustained without on-board high-g forces.

One of the consequences of the above identification of field propulsion type by Hill is his conclusion, supported by detailed calculation, computer simulation and wind-tunnel studies, that supersonic flight through the atmosphere without sonic booms is easily engineered. Manipulation of the acceleration-type force field would, even at supersonic speeds, result in a constant-pressure, compression-free zone without shockwave in which the vehicle is surrounded by a subsonic flow-pattern of streamlines, and subsonic velocity ratios. An additional benefit of such field control is that drops of moisture, rain, dust, insects, or other low-velocity objects would follow streamline paths around the craft rather than impact it.

Another puzzle resolved by Hill's analysis is that craft observed to travel continuously at Mach 4 or 5 do not appear to generate temperatures sufficiently high to be destructive to known materials. In other words, UFOs appear to prevent high aerodynamic heating rates, rather than permitting a heating problem, then surviving it with heat- resistant materials as is the case of the Shuttle whose surface temperatures can reach 1300 degrees C. The resolution of this potential problem is shown by Hill to derive from the fact that the force-field control that results in the prevention of shockwave drag as discussed above is also effective in preventing aerodynamic heating. In effect the airflow approaches, then springs away from the craft, depositing no energy in the process.

A further example of the type of correlation that emerges from Hill's analytical approach is provided by an analysis of the economy of various flight-path profiles. It is shown that high-angle, high- acceleration departures on ballistic-arc trajectories with high-speed coast segments are more efficient than, for example, intermediate-level, horizontal-path trips, both in terms of required impulse-per-unit-mass and time-of-flight parameters. This he correlates with the observation that UFO departures are of the dramatically high-angle, high-acceleration type.

Also of interest is Hill's analysis of the spectra and intensity of an apparent plasma sheath surrounding such craft, the details of which correlate with what one would expect in terms of it being a secondary effect associated with the propulsion system, for example, a blue shift and intensity increase during a "power-up" phase, and the opposite during hover or landing maneuvers. An additional fine point that emerges from this analysis is resolution of the paradox that observation on a direct line-of-sight to a near part of the craft can reveal a metallic-like structure while the attempt to observe the outline of the craft, necessarily by an oblique line-of-sight, results in an indistinct blur. Analysis shows this to be a reasonable outcome of an expected re- absorption of reflected light by the surrounding plasma in the longer- length path associated with the more oblique view.

Another typical nugget of information is found in Hill's discussion of the results of the analysis of a possible UFO artifact, the famous Ubatuba magnesium fragments claimed to have originated from an exploded unidentified craft near Ubatuba, Brazil. Laboratory analysis of the samples found the magnesium to be not only of exceptional purity, and anomalous in its trace composition of other elements, but 6.7% denser than ordinary pure magnesium, a figure well beyond the experimental error of the measurement. Hill's calculation shows that this observation can be accounted for by assuming that the sample contained only the pure isotope Mg26, rather than the naturally-occurring distribution among isotopes Mg24, Mg25 and Mg26. Since the only isotope separation on a significant scale in terrestrial manufacture is that of uranium, such a result must be considered at least anomalous, and possibly as evidence for extraterrestrial manufacture.

Additional calculations concerning the parameters of interstellar travel (including relativistic effects), and the energetics of such travel, have been performed and are included in tabular and graphical form. The wealth of material in these sections, along with discussion of the broad implications of this material, reveal the dedication and thoroughness of Hill's approach to his self-assigned task.

In the final analysis, one must conclude that Hill has assembled as good a case as can be made on the basis of presently available data that the observation of some "unconventional flying objects" is compatible with the presence of engineered platforms weighing in at something around 30 tons, which are capable of 100-g accelerations and 9000-mph speeds in the atmosphere. Perhaps more important for the technical reader, however, is Hill's supporting argumentation, based on solid analysis, that these platforms, although exhibiting the application of physics and engineering principles clearly beyond our present-day capabilities, do not appear to defy these principles in any fundamental way.

1. The book also comes highly recommended in a Frontispiece by Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell, and in a Foreword by retired McDonnell Douglas R&D manager Robert M. Wood. [Back]

2. Ass't Chief, Pilotless Aircraft Research Div.; Assoc. Chief, Applied Materials and Physics Div. Retired from NASA in 1970. [Back]

3.Recent examples of the discussion of the technical aspects of candidate field propulsion mechanisms of this type are given in M. Alcubierre, "The warp drive: hyper-fast travel within general relativity," Class. and Quantum Grav., vol. 11, p. L73 (1994), and in H. Puthoff, "SETI, the velocity-of-light limitation, and the Alcubierre warp drive: An integrating overview," Phys. Essays vol. 9, No. 1, p. 156 (March 1996). [Back]

Copyrighted ©1997 by H.E. Puthoff

iS THERE a transcript of the Hoppkins thing on Bell?

Thanks.

An interesting pic from a series of 5. Not sure where the rest are. From:

HERE: http://earthfiles.com/

The fifth in a series of photographs taken by 24-year-old Robbert van den Broeke

If you pay for Bell's 24-7 service you can listen to archived shows. They probably have a transcript at the pay site too. Its one of the few pay sites I am not a member of.

Someone commented in a FREEPMAIL about ET's being against war etc.

First a comment I ran across looking for the below . . . p 86, 87
"Left alone, he said, the human species would require another two million years, according to the best estimates of the Verdants' scientists, to achieve absolute intelligence."
. . .
"Absolute intelligence," . . .
"The point at which it becomes biologically impossible to become any more intelligent. There are limits to everything," Robert said.

"But again, he pointed out, the relatively low rating of a 2 or 3 on a scale of 1 to 10 [when compared to other species when they are first brought into the IFSP . . .] is due to the immense diversity of the human species. Most other species have intelligence levels that do not deviate more than one percent from the most intelligent to the least intelligent individuals. For all practical purposes, except for very slight variations, that means that every individual is of equal intelligence."

"If we compared just your most intelligent people--say the top 10 percent--your species would rank at perhaps an 8 or a 9," Robert continued. "But the sheer vast numbers of the less intelligent draw down the average considerably. Again, this is an anomaly that we had never experienced before. We previoiusly had thought that it would be impossible to find such a wide difference among infidivuals in the same species."

[then some interesting paragraphs about how they can help humans take 2-3,000 years instead of 2 million years to reach absolute intelligence.]

p 51
"So far, something like 27,000 species have been assimilated into the universal alliance of planetary civilizations. Many of those species originally had been isolated and confined . . . [because they were violent etc] Only about 200 species are currently confined to their home planets, the Verdants said."

"In addition, the Verdants themselves have colonized roughly 246,000 formerly uninhabited planets. Some of these are in the Milky Way Galaxy, but the vast majority are scattered to the farthest reaches of the universe. Their population is variously estimated at a total of 500 trillion on all of the planets, which range from pint-sized moons circling other planets, to spectacular giants. . . . "

"Of the 27,000 other species that have advanced civilizations on an equal number of planets and have become star travelers, there is a population of approximately 150 trillion. . .

[Whether story or half truth or whatever, this is another section worth getting the book just for the fun of the story]

She told me that the ship was a medium-size star cruiser, one of thousands in service throughout the universe, designed specifically for monitoring any planet to which it was assigned. This particular one was built 200,000 Earth years ago. Its name, literally translated, was "Goodwill." It was home port to several hundred smaller shuttle craft that are capable of traveling at sub-light speeds to the surface of the planet under observation."

"A larger mother ship about 20 times this size is always within close range and is capable of speeding to the monitoring ships within a short period of time, although the distances can be hundreds of trillions of miles of separation."

[This section too is worth getting the book for, imho]

p 69
The Goodwill is disk-shaped, thinner along the rim, and increasingly thicker toward the center. . . .Gina said, it has a radius of about three-quarters of a mile, or a diameter of about a mile and a half. It has 16 decks along the outer rim, which is about 200 feet thick at that point, and gradually rises to its highest point of 234 decks or about 3,000 feet thick, in the center."

"That is, through it's latitudinal axis, there are 8 decks below and 8 above on the rim, ranging to the center point of 117 decks below and 117 above the centerline."

"There are 32,000 personnel aboard, most of them scientists who conduct the studies of the planet under observation. Computers, of course, run the entire ship, so it requires only a handful of crew members to oversee its operation."

[This tour of the ship is also worth getting the book for, imho].

The KRAPF book THE CONTACT HAS BEGUN has an interesting take on that issue . . .

p. 73 Gus, the leader of the Verdant ship:
"I want to talk to you about that. The answer is yes, I have been in many fights. But I have never drawn blood, nor have I ever inflicted pain or injury upon another living creature. No Verdant has for eons."

. . .

"Do you play ches?" he asked.

. . .

"Partly right," Gus said. "Chess is a game played by cultured people pretending to be engaged in a gentlemanly p 74 contest of intellect but whose real purpose is to outwit their opponent to such a humilitating and degrading point that the rival will never speak to them again. It is barbaric, and yet no noses are bloodied, as you say."
. . .

"If there is only one message that you take back to your people," Gus continued, "it is imperative that they understand that the Verdants are a peaceful race, completely and totally lacking in aggressive tendencies. We are not conquerors or warriors. Your people must understand that. They must not fear us."

. . .

. . .
In addition, even their [Verdants] earliest recorded history shows vestiges of internecine conflict, although such destructive activities have been a thing of the past for eons. No Verdant warship has ever been built, let alone gone into space. There are no Verdant armed forces, and there have not been any for several million years. The only weapons of destruction exist in Verdant museums."

"Not even defensive weapons?" I asked. "What happens if you come across a warlike species that is already in space before you discover them? How would you defend yourselves?"

"'Absolute intelligence' is the ultimate weapon against which there is no adequate defense, even by the most aggressive and advanced military power," Gus said.

. . .
p75
"Ah, but what happens if this armed and ferocious species also has achieved absolute intelligence?" I asked. "Now you're facing an enemy that is as intelligent as you, but he has a weapon and you have none. Doesn't that put you at a disadvantage?"

"A contradiction in terms," Gus replied.

"Species resort to war and conflict when they lack the intellect to resolve their differences through peaceful means, Gus told me. Once absolute intelligence is achieved, use of force to settle disputes is out of the question because it is a tool of the ignorant and the inferior. Therefore, it is impossible to meet a warlike species with absolute intelligence. The two qualities are mutually exclusive."

. . .

. . .

"You said you've been in bloodless fights before," I said. "What did you mean?"

In their explorations of the universe, the Verdants have on occasion encountered heavily armed hostile species that have already become star travelers by the time they are discovered, Gus said. Without relying upon military weapons, the Verdants surrepititiously move their chess pieces into place and proceed to force the aggressive [p76] species out of space and back to their home planets. They become effectively isolated and neutralized until such time as the species evolve to the point where they can be safely absorbed into the IFSP."

. . .

. . .

. . .

"So what happened?" I asked.
"I checkmated them," he said.

"Gus had summoned a cadre of volunteers through the High Command, and within several months he had placed 10,000 Verdants on each planet who had been genetically altered and disguised to pass as members of the two species. Because of their supreme intelligence, the faux fifth columnists worked their way into positions of great power and authority within an accelerated time frame."

"They became heads of military units, key scientists, government leaders, and chief executives of industrial complexes, including armament manufacturers. Through sabotage, subterfuge, misdirection, persuasion over great masses of the host populations, and careful manipulation of government policy, the means to make war on each side quickly deteriorated."

"Great interstellar warships mysteriously malfunctioned. Satellites fell from the skies. Communications broke down. Weapons of destruction emerged from the factories woefully flawed, and then failed in combat. Finger-pointing and blame-laying led to heated bickering as the social fabric began to unravel. It got ot the point where each side's starship fleets became grounded.

[another very, very fascinating section continues]

Additional comment to my last above:

p 78
"While the Verdants do not interfere in the internal affairs of any species on their home planets, they do have strict regulations in matters involving the stellar community with regard to weapons. They are not tolerated, period. The cardinal rule is that space is only for the peaceful."

"The greatest stumbling block that humankind faces in its transition to a society of star travelers will be dealing with and overcoming that element of society that has traditionally dealt in violence and that has the most to lose when swords are beaten into plowshares, Gus said. In this group he included arms manufacturers and dealers, and petty tyrants who will be dethroned."

[Will be interesting to see what of all this is true vs disinformation. Many other reports of different ET races come across rather differently. But this book reads in a very flowy way. Very fascinating.].

I found it fast paced and exciting. The Illumanti was his first fiction and he didn't add a lot of words to describe or explain things. It was short and to the point. I read it one summer when my kids were young, and they were splashing in Congressman Ron Paul's pool. (he has a pool out in the country and anyone can pay a fee and use it)

You can't see them but they're visible. Did Kerry write their script??

Do the physics of infrared elude you?